The unexpected announcement of Arizona Cardinals’ J.J. Watt’s retirement in two games, when the regular season endscaught everyone by surprise, but perhaps one of the funniest reactions was that of his teammate, rookie LB Jesse Luketa, which he shared on social media.
Today Watt revealed a curious anecdote: on his cell phone he found a FaceTime message from a number he didn’t recognize. He then received a rather amusing voicemail message in his inbox.
He was struck by the incoherence of the audio
“So I played the voicemail, and – I so wish I might play it back, I’m going to ask him if I can later, I don’t want to do it now – and it’s like incoherent, complete incoherence,” Watt said. “And I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’ I literally thought it was distorted from the phone.
“So 10 seconds later, a picture comes up and it’s Jesse Luketa, our rookie outside linebacker, and he’s got cotton balls on both sides of his mouth. He just had his wisdom teeth pulled. He’s doped up, he has no idea what he’s doing. And in the message he says, ‘J.J., I just found out you’re retiring, all I want is a jersey at the end of the season.’ But it’s incoherent. More than incoherent. I listened to it ten times to understand what he was saying,” he revealed in amusement.
J.J. returned the video call
Watt ended up FaceTimeing Luketa back. “I say, ‘Jesse, what are you doing?’ He says, ‘I just want a shirt.’ He can’t talk at all. And four hours later I get a text from Jesse saying, ‘I still want that shirt, man, but I’m sorry regarding the call.‘ I had just been told, literally, when I woke up from anesthesia that you were retiring.'”
Luketa was a seventh-round pick by the Cardinals and a second-round pick in the CFL Draft, has appeared in five games this season and has made one tackle while playing sparingly on defence and special teams.
